In an intact room inside the building.
Thank goodness the elevator wasn't caught in the blast.
Sakurada Niji brought Shoko upstairs to regroup safely, without encountering any other curse users along the way.
"Shoko~ She's unconscious~ Take a look~" Satoru Gojo walked toward Shoko with Riko Amanai in his arms.
"Scumbag... Why are you holding a girl?" Shoko looked at him with contempt.
Shoko touched Riko Amanai's head, checked her with cursed energy, and made her diagnosis.
"She's not hurt. The explosion just knocked her out. She'll wake up soon. Can you put her down, scumbag?"
Just as Satoru Gojo was about to set Riko Amanai on the couch, he suddenly sensed something.
The drooling girl in his arms seemed about to wake up.
"Oh? She's awake," Satoru Gojo said.
The girl in Satoru Gojo's arms opened her eyes. She stared at the person holding her, froze for a moment, then slapped his face without hesitation.
"Ora~!" Satoru Gojo's face reddened visibly, a testament to how hard she had struck him.
Satoru Gojo covered his face, looking utterly incredulous.
Then the girl escaped his arms, leaped into the air, and landed steadily before striking an odd pose that seemed straight out of a tokusatsu show.
"You shameless villain! You dare try to kill me? Then you'll die first!" Riko Amanai warily kept her guard up against everyone in the room.
"Riko, calm down. We're not with the people who attacked you," Suguru Geto explained with a smile.
That smile is so fake... He doesn't look like a good guy at all... And he hasn't given her the important details. Way too suspicious, Sakurada Niji thought wryly.
"Lies! I can tell you're lying just by looking at your face! And that tuft of hair on your forehead is weird, too!"
Suguru Geto kept smiling as he flicked his strange bangs, but Sakurada Niji knew he cared a great deal about that tuft of hair.
"Sure enough, girls can spot scumbags at a glance~" Shoko said.
Seeing Satoru Gojo angrily clutching his swollen face and Suguru Geto wearing a dangerous smile, Sakurada Niji stepped forward on his own initiative to prevent another round of human-twisting tug-of-war.
"Miss Amanai, we were sent by Jujutsu High to escort you," Sakurada Niji introduced them earnestly and precisely.
Riko Amanai looked at the earnest boy before her.
This one doesn't look like a liar...
"I suppose I'll trust you just this once!"
She gradually lowered her guard and sat obediently on the couch.
"Why didn't Niji get hit?! You little brat! Who do you think you're looking down on?!"
Satoru Gojo shouted and tried to charge over for revenge, but Sakurada Niji stopped him with his arms around his waist.
The door opened, and a wild maid appeared, riding Suguru Geto's ugly-cute cursed spirit!
"Young lady, they're all on our side."
"Kuroi, what are you riding?" Curious, Riko Amanai crouched down to examine the cursed spirit beneath her.
"It's the cursed technique of the gentleman with the tuft of hair on his forehead~" Kuroi cheerfully introduced Suguru Geto to Riko Amanai.
Riko Amanai turned toward Suguru Geto, her face scrunched up like a bitter melon.
"Could you stop introducing me that way...?" Suguru Geto looked dejected.
"Cursed Spirit Manipulation, as the name suggests, lets me control cursed spirits I've absorbed."
Satoru Gojo sat on the couch, watching Riko Amanai stroke the cursed spirit's cheek.
"You're livelier than I expected, little girl~ I was worried you'd be depressed about the merger, and I was trying to figure out how not to upset you~"
The corners of Riko Amanai's mouth curled upward. She stood and said,
"That's the sort of thought... only a lowly person would have."
She flipped onto the cursed spirit, landed securely on its back, then stood up and declared proudly,
"Listen well! Lord Tengen is me! I am Lord Tengen! Some people confuse 'merging' with 'death,' just as you do, but they're completely wrong."
"Through the merger, I'll become Lord Tengen, and Lord Tengen will become me!"
"My will, my mind, and my soul will live on after the merger!"
Her speech was over.
Watching the lively girl deceive herself with words she didn't even believe, Sakurada Niji made up his mind.
No one in this world, except evil people, should have to die an unnatural death.
"A dozen or so years of life can't possibly compete with Tengen's ancient memories. After the merger, she'll just become one of Tengen's memories," Shoko murmured, so quietly that only Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto, who were standing close to her, heard.
This time, Satoru and Geto aren't talking about wallpaper to deliberately annoy Riko. Is it because Shoko and I are here?
"Kuroi! What time is it?!" Riko seemed to have remembered something.
"It's still morning... But I think going to school is..." Kuroi tried to dissuade her.
"Enough chatter! I said I'm going, so I'm going!"
Watching the girl's final unreasonable demands, Sakurada Niji felt a little sad.
She wants to say a proper goodbye to her classmates... Wait! I haven't contacted my old classmates since I came to Jujutsu High! Will they think I've gone missing?!
Renchoku Girls' Academy-school pool
Satoru Gojo had received a call from Masamichi Yaga and was complaining off to the side.
"Wouldn't it be safer to hurry back to Jujutsu High?!"
"I'd like to do that too, but Lord Tengen ordered us to fulfill every request Riko Amanai makes."
"Tch, they're spoiling her way too much." After hanging up, Satoru Gojo irritably kicked the water in the pool.
"Don't say that, Satoru. They said to accommodate her, but after the merger, she'll become Lord Tengen and serve as the foundation of the barrier at the lowest level of Jujutsu High."
"She'll never see her friends, her family, or anyone else important to her again," Suguru Geto told Satoru Gojo.
"Lady Riko has no family. When she was little, there was an accident... I've taken care of her ever since, so please let her spend as much more time with her friends as possible!"
"Then you're her family," Suguru Geto said with a smile.
"Yes!" Kuroi answered a little shyly.
Just then, Sakurada Niji's phone rang. He picked it up and looked at the caller's name: Masamichi Yaga.
Masamichi Yaga said, "The mission has changed, Niji. The higher-ups have assigned you a mission. Take Shoko and wait at the school gates. An assistant supervisor will be there shortly."
Sakurada Niji said, "All right, understood."
Tch, what a coincidence. Is this really an assignment from the higher-ups... or is it Tengen or Kenjaku...?
"Geto, Satoru, the higher-ups have assigned us a mission. Shoko and I have to go. The rest is up to you."
"Who do you think you're talking to? We're the strongest!" Satoru Gojo said.
Tokyo Adachi Eastern Hospital-
Sakurada Niji hadn't expected the higher-ups to assign them separate missions. Shoko was to go to Kyoto Jujutsu High to treat the jujutsu sorcerers there, while he had been assigned to exorcise a suspected special grade cursed spirit at a hospital.
"According to the Window's report, the cursed spirit is suspected to be a special grade imaginary cursed spirit. One nurse and two security guards have gone missing in the morgue on the first basement floor."
"According to hospital staff, before disappearing, the missing nurse took the body of a woman who had drowned to the morgue. The hospital subsequently sent two security guards inside, and both disappeared. That's all the information we have. Please be careful, Sakurada."
Suspected special grade, my ass. I'll stake my head on it being special grade, and they sent me here alone... Those rotten old bastards are fucking vicious.
"Understood. I'll be careful." Sakurada Niji felt somewhat anxious. This was his first time exorcising a special grade cursed spirit alone, and he was afraid he wouldn't make it back in time.
"Sakurada, the Curtain is in place. May fortune favor you in battle."
The hospital was eerily quiet. The patients and doctors had all been safely evacuated, and Sakurada Niji took the elevator to the first basement floor.
Once the elevator doors opened, Sakurada Niji stepped out. The elevator behind him vanished instantly, and the entire basement became utterly horrifying. The walls had turned into some indescribable material, their surfaces looking slimy and their colors a chaotic mess. The stench of rotting corpses filled the air.
Sakurada Niji gripped Fufū tightly. He concentrated, carefully sensing the cursed residue, then slowly followed its traces across the floor as he explored.
Suddenly, the cursed residue Sakurada Niji sensed disappeared. A door stood before him.
The boss room. Got it.
He slowly opened the door. Inside was something like a bathhouse. The material of its floor and walls resembled a human body swollen from soaking in water, and thick, scarlet liquid was everywhere.
...I've decided to treat myself to a good dinner.
As soon as Sakurada Niji stepped into the room, an unpleasant, sticky sensation spread beneath his feet. He didn't look down, instead beginning to examine his surroundings.
Suddenly, as Sakurada Niji was surveying the area, he heard a woman's sobs coming from ahead.
Sakurada Niji looked toward the sound. A black-haired woman was soaking in a pool of blood with her back to him.
Heh. Classic.
Sakurada Niji advanced cautiously, keeping his guard up against the woman in the blood pool. Just as he came within ten meters of her, she stopped sobbing and slowly turned her head.
Before you continue